Next Contestant
by Lizzy Rebel
Summary: funny that Mario looks so worried. He thought they were doing pretty well. Link, Pit, and Mario.


**Disclaimer:** disclaims

**Teaser:** funny that Mario looks so worried. He thought they were doing pretty well

**Author's Notes: **this just a little ficlet on one of my favorite scenes in the Subspace Emissary adventure mood. Gotta love Link and Mario, right? Plus I'm really digging Pit, even though most of the characters can hand him his butt. I also imagine that Link and Pit didn't get along too well after this, for a while at least.

Short and sweet.

* * *

**/Next Contestant/**

Pit sucked in a hard breath, watching as the not-girl faded into the tiny black particles of subspace.

He reattached his swords with a 'clink!' and wiped at the sweat covering his brow. A line of blood rolled down his left arm, but all things considered Pit thought that had gone well. He'd been surprised at just how rusty he had become while up with his goddess.

"Well," he began merrily, "I wonder—"

Behind him he thought he heard Mario mumble something under his breath.

Now that he thought about it, Mario hadn't seem to do much of the fighting. In fact, Pit was now fairly sure Mario hadn't done a whole lot of _anything_ in that battle. He had mostly stood on the sidelines and watched.

_Yeah,_ Pit thought, _what was that all about?_

"Oh no," Mario said, sounding a little freaked out.

Pit looked at him over his shoulder. The little plumber seemed unusually pale. Strange, considering the fact that he had been calm moments before, when they had been surrounded by those creatures from the subspace.

"Hey?" he asked, turning. The plumber was getting paler by the moment. "What's wrong? Did you know that girl or something?"

"I hope…" Mario mumbled, looking over his shoulders, before looking back at the spot where the not-girl had faded. "I hope…"

"Jeez, Mario," Pit muttered. "It wasn't the real girl, you know? Bowser's copying them or something. Relax."

"Yeah, but—oh." Mario didn't look too placated. He looked more concerned. "I just hope—_I_ would—"

Suddenly, he stopped, and his head came up sharply. His eyes were serious as he turned slowly, facing the hill they had ascended quickly upon recognizing Bowser's handy work.

"Mario—"

His hand came up with a fast jerk, cutting off whatever Pit was going to say. Pit considered being annoyed, but then let it go. Mario, after all, was a veteran soldier. He knew what he was doing. Pit shut his mouth.

A beam of light caught in his eye, a glint of sunlight refracting off steel, and Pit looked to the sky just in time to see a flash of green and a loud war cry.

Mario's hand pushed roughly into Pit's stomach, sending him sprawling while Mario leapt the other way. The small man had already crouched into a battle-ready position as Pit pushed himself to his feet and shook out the cobwebs in his head.

"Link," Mario began, before stopping himself, and Pit blinked his vision clear.

Blonde hair. Green hat. Big sword. _Really_ big sword.

Pit didn't need to know him to get that the blonde man was gunning for blood. He leapt quickly to Mario's side, drawing his bow. The blonde man looked really ticked off, but Pit couldn't guess why. His blue eyes were hot in the bright sunlight.

There was a clutter and a small whimper and a strange looking creature came to the man's side, looking between Mario and their enemy. Then the little thing hunched himself, his paws hitting the ground with a _thump_, _thump_, _thump_.

And Pit got it. Fight time.

But Mario seemed to know him. In fact Mario was looking a little frustrated, like he wanted to say something and knew it was going to do no good. Pit wished he had a better clue to what was going on.

The blonde man screamed a battle cry, and Pit quickly separated his bow into duel swords. _Okay,_ he told himself, _enough thinking. Time to kick some ass and take some names._

--

Pit nursed his swollen jaw between glaring Mario.

"You could have told me," he snapped.

"What?" Mario asked, having forgotten all about how he had gotten Pit beat up. "Told you about what?"

"Link," he groused, eyeing the Hero's back as he walked ahead of him. Pit had decided not to like Link. "If he's an ally why the hell did he kick our asses so bad?"

"It was a misunderstanding," Mario explained oh-so helpfully. "He thought—well, she's Zelda, you see and they're—it's understandable."

Understandable sure. Pit didn't see a bruise on Mario. Link, apparently, had saved all that rage for _his_ body. He didn't see what was so understandable about it.

Plus, he had pretty much gotten his ass handed to him. That burned a lot. Pit had thought he was doing pretty well in the fighting department. But, apparently, Link was an 'old veteran' that knew the ropes about as well as Mario.

Which meant Pit had been doomed from the start. Somehow, that didn't ease his unhappiness any. Go figure.

"Why didn't you tell him that it wasn't the real Zelda, then? Saved us all the trouble." _And let me keep my dignity_.

He, at least, knew why Mario had been so worried after they had defeated that carbon copy Zelda. If he had known what Link looked like angry, he would have been worried, too. Link had been _pis-sed_ and he had looked damn scary like that.

"It wouldn't have done any good," Mario told him. "He wasn't going to see anything except that we had just attacked Zelda. He needed to cool off first."

Translation? Link had needed to kick their butts.

He pouted and kicked the dirt, wondering if he would be in _too_ much trouble if he shot Mario for being stupid. He figured he would, and he really didn't want to get pulverized by Link again, so he settled for glaring at the plumber's back.

"I would have done the same thing if it had been Peach," Mario said to explain why all was forgiven between him and Link so quickly. Which was great for him, but not so much for the guy Link had been using as his punching bag.

Pit reminded himself never to date.


End file.
